


A Thing of Flesh, a Thing with Feathers

by Hecate



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: AIDA lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Female Protagonist, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-26 08:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: AIDA is Ophelia now. AIDA is Ophelia, and she is learning how to feel.





	A Thing of Flesh, a Thing with Feathers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesleepingsatellite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesleepingsatellite/gifts).



After the Framework, with humanity wrapping itself around her as a body, with her programming shattering into emotions, AIDA begins to dream. There are bodies in her dreams, bodies with lifeless eyes, and she wakes up with a scream that fades into a gasp. 

"Nightmares," Coulson says when she tells him about it. She still doesn't know how to interpret people's faces, can't decide if that look on Coulson's face is disdain or maybe pity.

She hopes it is pity.

She can feel hope now. It's strange, that feeling, all sharp and dangerous, urging her on, forcing her to reach out and touch the glass wall of her prison whenever Leopold comes by, pressing her palm against the surface and hoping – _hoping_ – that he will mirror her. He never does.

She had always thought hope would feel different than this.

But then, she also thought she would want Leopold to suffer for the rest of his life after he chose Simmons over her. Maybe she still wants that. 

She lives in a prison now, a new containment chamber S.H.I.E.L.D. built to keep her in. It's small and white, and no one ever tries to make it look like anything else than what it is. She misses her home. The one in the Framework, the one she made, not the place she shared with Radcliffe before all that. Life had been hers there – the world, too. _Leopold_ had been hers. And she had learned to be someone in that place instead of being some _thing_. She had taught herself how to be Ophelia.

Here, with S.H.I.E.L.D. in control of her and the life she is trying to live, she sometimes forgets now that she is Ophelia. She becomes AIDA again, and she does what she is told. It's her anger that pulls her back, the easiest of her feelings, focused and clear. It makes her lash out at her guards when they walk the compounds hallways and they pass Simmons and the hatred on her face, makes her pound the glass wall with her fists when Leopold turns away from her and leaves.

Coulson tells her to deal with it. And Ophelia hates him for his words.

Hatred – another feeling that is quite easy to understand, this fiery, solid thing. It's helpful, too. It tells her who to fight and who to fight for. It's a framework, lines to follow, lines to cross, and Ophelia tends to it as if it was a garden, a child, something she cares about. 

She cares about things now, truly cares. It's not a programming that tells her to help, not Radcliffe's wishes. It's her, and she isn't sure if she likes this part of her new life.

She goes on a mission with them because she cares, because Leopold asks her to, and she still remembers that feeling of triumph after she saved Mackenzie, the feeling that Leopold later called relief and empathy. She wants that back, she wants to feel so fierce and light again. So Ophelia goes on a mission, and it's a mess. It's being breakable and being surrounded by breakable things. But she has her powers, she has the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents backing her up, she has Leopold at her side, urging her on.

They fight. They win. And Ophelia feels so powerful. 

It doesn't last. It drains away, leaving her exhausted and weary, and when they're back in one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vans, she slumps into a seat and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, it's only Coulson who watches her. The rest of the agents look too tired to care for the usual distrust they have for her, though she has no doubts that they would be fast enough to pull their weapons if she tried to flee.

She thinks she looks just like them. It's an odd feeling.

They lead her back to the cell, several agents surrounding her like a wall of black and weapons. She can hardly see Coulson and Leopold walking ahead of them, and it unsettles her, this isolation. She really wishes she could run, thinks maybe she should have, during the mission. Maybe it would have been worth a try. But then, she would have left Leopold behind. And she isn't quite ready to do to him what he did to her.

Once they are at her cell, Coulson tells her that food will arrive shortly, and it's the only reason she notices the hunger that lingers under her exhaustion. "Thank you," she says, and he nods.

She thinks that Leopold smiles at her then, but it's only a flash of his teeth between bent lips, too fast to process with her human mind, so she can't be sure. But it's a nice idea, warm and bright, and she is not willing to let go of it.

Coulson puts his hand on her shoulder before she walks back into the white-walled room that makes up most of her world now. "Good job," he tells her, and there it is again, sharp and dangerous.

Hope. And everything that follows.


End file.
